The last few decades have witnessed a struggle within continentalphilosophy between those thinkers who accept Immanuel Kantâ€™s â€œCopernicanRevolutionâ€ and those who refuse critical philosophy in favor ofa â€œclassicalâ€ metaphysics that, in the words of Alain Badiou, â€œconsidersthe Kantian indictment of metaphysicsâ€¦as null and void.â€ This conferencewill consider the conflict between â€œcriticalâ€ and â€œclassicalâ€ ormetaphysical strains in contemporary thought. Has critical philosophy runits course, as Badiou suggests? Or has Kantâ€™s critical turn determinedthe horizon of all future philosophical work? Or is there an alternativepath?

We are interested in analyzing the contemporary division between thinkerswho prescribe a return to the pre-critical metaphysics of, for example,Spinoza, Leibniz, or Lucretius, and those who continue to take up varioustrajectories of Kant's critical legacy. The former camp might includeDeleuze and Badiou as well as Negri and Althusser, while the latter mightinclude Adorno, Benjamin, Heidegger, and Derrida. We particularly wish toencourage work that takes a stand on the conflict between the two camps,as well as work that considers the implications of the conflict for thearts and social sciences. The wide range of our inquiry includesinterrogations of the nature of critique, the fate of aesthetics, theprivilege accorded to immanence or transcendence, and the status ofmaterialism.

Suggested paper topics include (but are not limited to):

- transcendence and immanence- Derrida and Deleuze- negation and affirmation- finite and infinite- the rebirth of rationalism- aesthetic ideologies- quasi-, ultra-, immanent-transcendental- the Althusserian legacy- the one and the multiple- the persistence of the dialectic- the fate of aesthetics- the return to Kant- the future of the linguistic turn- the question of critique- futures of Marxism- philosophies of experience- univocity, equivocity- the limits of representation- the historical a priori- the genesis of subjectivity- the possibility of materialism- affects, passions- the role of the negative- the new philosophy of science- political ontology- the return of nature philosophy- radical Spinoza- rhetoric and philosophy

The deadline for submission of 250-word paper abstracts for 20-minutepresentations is February 1, 2008. Please include your name, e-mailaddress, and phone number. Please email abstracts to theory_at_cornell.edu.Notices of acceptance will be sent no later than February 15, 2008. Formore information about the Theory Reading Group, visithttp://www.arts.cornell.edu/trg.